Iain Gray Freelance Writer

Total Recall - Review

Based (very, very loosely) on Philip K Dick’s short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, this has Arnold Schwarzenegger on an interplanetary romp to Mars after a memory implant goes horribly wrong and shadowy assassins inexplicably start to hunt him down.

Playing on Dick’s favourite obsessions of dubious reality and identity, the obvious surprise here is that any action movie starring “The Governator” could have such a delicate touch behind the countless explosions and eviscerations.

Yet it succeeds with a canny, likeable performance from the Austrian Oak, and a marvellously duplicitous plot that demands a second viewing.

And Paul “Robocop” Verhoeven proves yet again that there is no better director out there for disguising elegant, complex satire as big, dumb, violent entertainment.